Brehs, we present to you a new episode of the CYPHER AVENUE PODCAST where you’ll hear us give updates, engage in heated topic debates, interviewing interesting homosexual men of color and us verbally adding on to the articles posted on the website.

The episodes will be available in three ways: You can listen to them on the site, watch on YouTube or download a MP3 version to your computer for listening on you commute to work or while you’re at the gym!

In this podcast, Cypher Avenue founders Ocky Williams & Nick Delmacy discuss Beyonce Stans, Homophobia in Religion, the Black Church and Black Fraternities, Keyboard Wars with Black Gay Feminists on Facebook, the list of “the 13 Best Male Black Gay Characters in Film/TV…EVER” and much more!

Cypher Avenue is a direct response to the lack of a single website on the Internet catering to gay/bisexual men that love hip hop, pop culture, video games, sci-fi and mature, open minded conversations. Topics ranging from sex, sports, movies, new tech, science, fashion, comic books, politics, working out, hip hop, booze, television, cars, the outdoors, geek stuff, dating, and relationships; you name it, we have it.

51 Comments

Hannibal

See, I knew having two people not in a fraternity would miss the mark. The difference between frats and organized religion is that anti-gay rhetoric is written into religion. There’s nothing written into fraternities(to my knowledge) condemning the gays. Do you know how many frat founders were gay? Do you know how many OPEN homosexuals have been national presidents of their fraternities? Do you know how many open gays RUN entire chapters of their frats? Yes, you have some vocal assholes who don’t like the gays but coming from an out gay who walks into any frat event with his head up, that’s decreasing. And that’s all.

If you noticed we didn’t say “All Fraternities Are Homophobic.” However I did say that I have known people who are Line Brothers with very homophobic men yet they still call them “Brother” and fear that they would ever find out about them.

As a member of an NPHC org I’ll say there is an image of hyper masculinity and anti-gay attitudes but there are more than a few self identified gays at the countless Greek events annually (ATL Greek Picnic, etc.) and it always seems to be love. I don’t think it’s as uncommon as people may think.

Valid points from both of you but again I’ll say that at no time did we claim that the entire Greek system was inherently homophobic. However I’ve personally talked to closeted guys who said they quietly watched Line Bros spew homophobia in restaurants, etc.

Yes, that happens. Even happened to me a couple of times. I had a chapter president I was visiting once talk to me outside about how he just didn’t get gays and didn’t feel comfortable with them. I’ve had my line brothers talk about how they didn’t like the gays either. You know what changed that? Telling them they were talking to a homo. Shuts that all the way down. You can’t change the environment if you don’t speak up and now the gays are speaking up and the climate has changed.

As someone who spent the first 18 years of his life being forced to attend a holiness church multiple hours a day, 5 hours a week with just about every relative, teach, neighbor also a believer, it’s just a suffocation that’s hard to explain and difficult to escape. Even when I went away to college, I felt obligated to attend my Bishop’s son-in-law’s church. They actually checked in to make sure I was attending. When that’s all you know and that’s your only support, it’s not easy to break away which is why I don’t judge people like the Amish and Scientology. People have fears of dogs from dog bites when they’re kids and I was told I would burn in hell 5 days a week for years so that’s enough to scare the hell out of a kid.

Also, people want inclusion to anything they feel is greater. I think an effeminate dude can have 1000 Bossips and Funky Dineva, but a masculine man’s approval is like that of a father. And for you guys to not embrace femininity in the gay community, in a way, is like being rejected over again.

Yeah I’ve always been a stray cat type of guy…never really following a herd, doing my own thing so the hold of the church wasn’t very strong…But I can understand the need to belong to something greater than yourself.

As far as being inclusive, you may be right. But again, I’m a stray cat, never going along with the herd…becoming just like every other fem-leaning website would erase everything that makes Cypher Avenue unique.

Love the podcasts but I’ve been bothered by something I’ve noticed during every podcast. Why do you guys have to constantly refer to the fact that you are masculine? You probably said masculine at least over 50 times and with no disrespect intended, it gets annoying. True masculine men don’t have to keep saying that they are masculine….they just ARE! It’s kinda like semi-rich people who always walk around talking about how rich they are. Why not just be masculine and not have to say it. It almost sounds like you both are trying too hard to express that. Plus masculinity is relative…you might view yourself as “masculine” but every one else that you meet might not view you as masculine. #foodforthought

When they are discussing topics that require a compare an contrast with the “two worlds,” it’s necessary to use the appropriate terms to distinguish the two. They’ve done many podcasts on varied topics where it’s not necessary to use the terms, therefore, they don’t.

CJ, I hear you and agree on some level…we do talk about masculinity a lot…For those of you that are regulars, it can seem redundant. However, as we’ve repeatedly stated, Homosexuality is currently defined by femininity…

Let me ask you a question, you’re annoyed by us saying “masculine” a lot…are you equally annoyed by gay men saying “girl”, “Bitch”, “Queen”, etc even more than our usage of “Masculine”?

When people think of “gay” they think of men with female behaviors, terminology and interests. Even most gay websites and media, by default, speak from a feminine perspective. We feel that we have to overcompensate speaking on the subject a little just to balance things out. In the case of this podcast, we were discussing an incident where a black gay feminists (his own designation) claimed that we were trying to erase feminine gay men from the world by having a list of only “masculine performing” (again, his words, not mine) black gay characters. There was no way to not say the word “masculine” in this discussion.

PS: Masculinity may be relative but no one has or would ever accuse either @Ocky or myself as “feminine.” Saying we’re masculine doesn’t make it any less so…just like us constantly saying that we’re “Black” doesn’t make us any less Black.

Yes, gay men calling each other girl, bitch etc. does annoy me, but I don’t really hang with those crowds so my interaction with them are limited. All of my homeboys are what I guess society would call “masculine.”[masculine meaning that the everyday average person would assume that you are straight by your outward appearance and mannerisms].

I don’t know why you guys let those silly fems who cry and complain about your platform get to you. They only say those things about you trying to erase feminine men from media because they feel threatened and insecure about themselves. What they complain about have no merits anyway because 99.9% will probably say that they want a “masculine” man anyway, much like the men you chose to put on your list. Stop overcompensating for them, that’s their issues and since it has already been addressed countless times what’s the point of rehashing it.

I understood totally what the podcast was about, you’ve discussed this same topic before in the past. Obviously you needed to use the word “masculine” but come on…..50 times? Plus you said things like, “as a masculine gay man…..” too many times to count.

Example: say I took you out to dinner and all throughout the dinner I kept saying “As a very attractive guy myself”….etc etc etc. Suppose I said this like 50 times through the dinner, eventually you are gonna be like “this dude here is conceited as hell!”

Man, it takes a lot more to get me riled up than this conversation so no need to keep saying you don’t mean to offend, lol. We ain’t like the sensitive feminists out there. We give those guys attention because we love a good debate.

Also, I get your point about the word but I guess the difference is you keep comparing the word “masculine” to hypothetical examples where people are bragging about themselves (ie: Being “rich” or “attractive”). This is not the context in which we use the word. We use it as a descriptor of ourselves in a community of gays that are typically feminine by default.

In a perfect world, “masculine” wouldn’t be needed to describe gay men in general who are not effeminate or flamboyant. But guess what, gay women do it too. Black lesbians describe masculine gay women as “Butch” and “Stud” all the time.

Trust me when I say, the only time we say the word “Masculine” is when we’re talking about the gay lifestyle. We don’t hang out in sportsbars and say, “as a masculine black gay man, I have to admit that these chicken wings are on point.”

As for you comments about bragging. It IS something to brag about being masculine. That’s my opinion. It’s like saying “would you rather be ugly or attractive? of course 99% of niggas would pick attractive. “Would you rather be rich or poor?” Of course you’d pick rich. “Would you rather be fem or masc?” Again, 99% of gay men would pick masculine.

But just like attractiveness and being rich, you can’t just simply choose what you wanna be. Fem men, if they are honest, would tell you that they would love to have been able to be masculine in life; but because they weren’t and society obviously saw that; they have had to LEARN how to be comfortable in their own skin and embrace there femininity. Think about it. Fem men are some of the bravest dudes out there. To live their lives as a constant joke, to be bullied all throughout school, shunned in church and in public, to be ridiculed, mocked and potentially beat up at a moment’s notice all based on because they act differently is some heavy shit.

What we as masculine men who never had to go through any of that don’t realize is that they are slowly but surely paving the way for us to be able to live our lives in the open as well. It almost like how black people had to be maids or prostitutes first on the big screen before the doors were open and now we have all black productions. The fems put US [gay men] on the screen in some capacity. We are not the “hidden” society…

We are not the “hidden” society anymore. They are making people feel comfortable interacting with us and all of those things are positive. How do you think the turnaround from the U.S. being anti-gay marriage to all of a sudden having several states in which we now can get married came from? The masculine gay men, like Jason Collins, Michael Sam and Frank Ocean are just now coming out and showing their faces from the shadows…but it took a RuPaul to pave the way for them.

A lot of Masculine gay men really are punks, they prefer to hide in the shadows and wait for the climate to evolve instead of being bold enough to just jump out and say what they are. And you sit here and wonder why their are a limited number of masculine gay characters on tv.

Hell, even the moderators like Nick and Ocky choose to hide their faces and not post pictures of themselves as a rule. If this site is to inspire and is one of the biggest gay sites as you guys constantly point out, then why be behind the scenes trailblazers??? It’s almost like Jason Collins coming out and saying he’s gay but announcing it behind the black screen.

So I don’t wanna hear anything else about the lack of masculine gay men on television when you guys still subscribe to that “I wanna be discrete” shit. Discretion is thrown out the window when you have a chance and a platform to change history. Somebody gotta be brave.

Again, I disagree. But you’re entitled to your opinion. Not all masculine men, especially white men are “hidden” as you put it. They have also been there paving the way for equal rights. The difference is (the difference that we constantly highlight on this website) is that masculine men are seldom seen or celebrated when it comes to media (films, television, websites, parades, etc), even though they clearly exist and are Out.

I admit that effeminate men may be bullied more, but I don’t consider them any more “brave” than masculine men. Coming out in this society is tough for everyone. A loud, boisterous, flamboyant gay man is no more “brave” than the loud, boisterous, ratchet black person…They’re both just attention seekers. Check out that Key & Peele sketch demonstrating this very statement: http://cypheravenue.com/watch-key-peeles-the-office-homophobe/

And why should we be quantifying gay suffering anyway? Both masc and fem men will be called a “faggot” by homophobes.

First, this site caterers to gay black men. We are not talking about white men. And even gay white masculine men are hard to find in the media. I cant think of ANY off the top of my head that have paved the way for gay rights. And once again you take everything to the extreme….I was not referring to overly loud boisterous gay men wearing heels and snapping in the club necessarily. And their is a BIG difference in the suffrage of fem versus masc men. I know for myself for instance, I was never bullied, ridiculed in school. I played football and was a popular guy in high school. Once I moved to ATL and attended Morehouse my first roommate was feminine and he told he countless stories of shit he had to go through, being kicked out of the house, bullied, beaten up and even looked at by the church as disgusting. (and this kid was only 18 at the time).

Nick, there is a HUGE difference dude whether you wanna admit it or not. It just always seems like you are always so anti-fem and you give them no respect. This may not be true but it’s how you come off, in both blogs and during podcast.

I like your statement about why are we comparing gay suffering…homophobes will still call us a fag whether we masc or fem. The difference my brotha is that they don’t know that you are a gay man.

You spoke in the podcast about being friends with someone who whispered to you that he’d rather his son be dead than be gay. That was your opportunity to say something right then, to speak up for yourself. Because indirectly he was speaking about you too. You could have told him, hey man “I’m gay” “I don’t appreciate that shit.” Seeing someone who was a friend and obviously masculine might have changed his whole opinion on gay people in general.

Most straight men hate that gay men are fem and walk around in heels etc. It’s the femininity that they hate. You had the opportunity to show him that not all us do all that. That a lot of us are “normal” everyday average people who happen to love the same sex. But you missed the opportunity! Matter fact, you didn’t say shit or stand up for yourself.

Sigh…Yeah building two websites from scratch, doing interviews, podcasts, videos, a social media platform and more means nothing without a couple (real or fake) thumbnails of the site creators.

As we’ve said repeatedly, we have no desire to be gaylebrities, we want to give back yet keep somewhat of a private life. As you cn see with Michael Sam, even Gay sites are digging up personal dirt about him…

There are gay people, like Jason Collins, who want to be a visible gay spokesperson…More power to them. We have built a place to celebrate those individuals.

Masculine gay men have not been “hiding”, they have just have constantly been brushed aside. For example, the Michael Boatman gay character on SPIN CITY was on ABC back in 1996-2002! Why is it we NEVER see or hear about that character yet Noah’s Arc is still celebrated by gays to this day after only 2 short seasons on a small cable station?

Masculine gay men are not in the “gay narrative”…the narrative that even you seem to be regurgitating.

You are never in jeopardy of becoming a gaylebrity. You most certainly ARE NOT Michael Sam or Jason Collins. They play professional sports! There is no comparison! Nobody is gonna dig up anything on you as a web moderator. It’s really just a bunch of excuses.

And as far as Michael Boatman, he was just one character. Gay men might not have an opportunity to IDENTIFY with him which is why Noah’s Arc was a more popular show. There were several characters to identify with on Noah’s Arc

Dude you can’t have it both ways then… You can’t say we’re not as important as Michael Sam yet say people NEED us to have our faces all over the Internet. If we don’t matter, then who cares?

My opinion, there are “gaylebrities” that are not on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The black gay community is smaller than you think, some of the small time bloggers are even considered gay celebrities. If being famous for being gay is your goal, more power to you.

Also, you can’t use the analogy about being black and saying you’re black. Being black is a fact. It is what you are. [Despite what Tiger Woods may think] Being gay is a fact. You like men. Being fem or masculine is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

I agree that some men are deluded about themselves… But my masculinity is a fact about myself…Its a fact about @Ocky. There is no denying that. You can say its subjective all you want but I promise you when I say that NO GAY MAN WOULD SAY WE’RE FEMININE BLACK MEN. Ever. I promise you this. LOL.

WOW! We gotta meet one day, cause you try too too too hard to assert your masculinity. I can tell that it’s important to you to be viewed as masculine. You might not have been able to live with yourself if you happened to be one of the unlucky few who came out fem.

Side note: ALL men have some feminine traits and that trait just might come out at the most inopportune time for you. You might just have to embrace it. Say for example I was fucking the shit outta you in my bed, I guarantee you’ll scream like a bitch, then you’ll roll outta bed, put your timbs back on, climb into your hummer and head out to your domino game in the hood.

This is making my sunday. I was thinking several posts ago that nick could put an end to all this just by going on a date with dude and what do you know. That’s exactly what he wanted. LMAO Man nick I don’t know what it is but you gotta give me some of that juice.

LOL, Nick reminds me of myself. He is head strong and stubborn like a motherfucka. Even when he wrong as hell, he will defend it to the end. Those type of dudes are always the best sex. Especially when you tame that ass into submission.

CJ you do realize people get bullied for plenty of reasons other than sexuality right? I got picked on for my lame cheap cloths. Bullying is not exclusive to fem men (notice I didn’t say fem gays). Fems don’t own suffering and over coming adversity. So tired of that argument.

Once again you choose to cherry pick from my comments. I said a hell of a lot more than just being bullied dude. But you wouldn’t understand none of that cause you guys are clueless. Like somebody else said earlier, you don’t have to constantly put down one group of people to make yourselves seem better. At the end of the day we all gay. We all in the same family…we might have different daddies, but we all sisters and brothas. The term is called “self-hating” As you guys grow up and mature, you’ll look back on this and realize that you were wrong in some of your comments.

Speaking of stereotypes and over sexualization…how did this conversation turn into penetration, making somebody scream from said penetration, to asking someone out for a date? @nick has already said enough so I’m good.

@Ocky
First off, I already said it was joke [my asking Nick out]…to lighten the mood, cause once I said something Nick didn’t like he immediately went into attack mode. I am not interested in Nick. How could I be…I have never seen him. He, like you, are still hiding in the shadows.

Whatever the case, are you Nick’s keeper or something? Why have a comments section if you gonna disrespect other people’s opinions. If you gonna be this “great debater” have some facts and some “real” info before coming to the debate because once someone more educated comes along then you just look silly.

I asked Nick why he didn’t say shit to his “straight” friend about his comments about not wanting a gay son. Nick had no response to that cause he know he sold out. I asked him about what gay white masculine man he talking about and he post some lame ass youtube video of some guy that is completely irrelevant. Nick running around here comparing himself to real celebrities like Jason Collins. Nigga stop!

Now we got you jumping on the band wagon feeling like you have to come to Nick’s rescue. Yes, I said it! All that clip posting and shit aint something masculine men do. That is some shady catty lame fem shit if I ever saw it. Real niggas can talk about shit, disagree about it without all that extra shit.

This type of lame shit makes me rethink visiting this site. I had always had the impression that this was a forward-thinking site for masculine gay men…not the…

Let me begin by saying I’ve been a visitor to this website since the D.C. days. I thank you and Ocky for the forum you have established. This podcast and the following exchange is what made me finally open an account, which i had intended on doing for quite some time now. On to the meat of things. Nick I was dissatisfied in your response to CJ, because he was asking a question I was left with after hearing the podcast myself. When CJ was ready to bring the topic back into focus- you deflected. His last response was quite sharp and a gif response as a rebuttal(should have been left at the sandbox) left me wanting.

That exchange aside, when i listened to the podcast i was a bit confused as to what the take-away was suppose to be about your “friend.” I felt that there was much left out of that “story.” Something that didn’t make since/missing info. was this:
1. Guys don’t cry on one another’s shoulders unless they are very close. So you mean to tell me thats the end of the story, and you “shutdown” in such a way that you didn’t even attempt to salvage the friendship.
2. Ok, you met up with him again four years later- what happened??? Did he know you were gay by then?
3. Was this more than a friendship(spoken or unspoken, because we guys do that shit)?
4. Back to what CJ asked, why didn’t you “Own your truth?” lol- from what you said about Michael Sam.
I’m going to end by saying this- I respect you if you don’t want to talk further about it. At least say…

@nick, what your friend said to you that made you shutdown is similar to things I’ve heard my friends say, if not to me, then to other people around me. I put distance between us too but for different reasons. But isn’t it interesting how religious people will condemn homosexuality with such ferocity but seem to tolerate so many others with a shrug. I mean there were unwed mothers in my church that weren’t treated nearly as bad as the two dudes everyone knew to be gay. I have an aunt and uncle who are heavy into drugs and alcohol, in and out of jail, and have stolen from just about everybody in the family, yet they don’t get the side-eye treatment like gay people. Even people who haven’t set foot in a church and have 10 kids by 10 different people will look down on a gay person. I mean I know religion is the root of a lot of it but it just seems like there is something else I’m missing that explains the intrinsic disgust with which people view homosexuality.

I agree, which is why I often disagree with @Ocky when he says its all due to religion and indoctrination. I don’t have an answer…there aren’t any traits of other people that I think is “disgusting” except for maybe pedophilia. But in my mind, the two don’t compare since homosexuality is between consenting adults…but maybe in their mind its the same thing.

“A glitter bomb went off and I’ve got to clean up later” Lol, yall are a trip. Good podcast though. Michael K. Williams actually talked about playing Omar recently on Arsenio too. Not that he hadn’t in the past, but saying he was happy to show a gay dude as masculine.

I don’t believe any of the effeminate visitors of this website are concerned with us having a masculine space, nor really you all contributing to the erasure/stereotyping of their existence I believe it’s more so the fact that you all do degrade their experience. That you all tend to lump them all together as Beyonce worshiping, lip smacking characters (ie THIS PODCAST) instead of actual human beings as though they do not exist nor have a place in our community beyond being avid RHOA fans. I think personally you don’t have to pull one down to raise the other up, I think it often calls to question you all’s motives. I appreciate this space as a self identified pansexual, biracial, masculine man however I have commented that you all have a tendency to rip down effeminate members of the community and that’s not necessary to be a proud masculine gay male. I think this is reflective of what happens in the community and this is just one more venue where that happens. As I said before I love what you all do but I hate there has to be such hate directed their direction.

@tyron88 Thanks for the supporting the podcasts/articles… I’m not gonna argue with you, your criticisms are valid from your perspective…You’ve repeatedly made this observation to us on Twitter so I can tell you feel strongly about it.

However, I just wanna say that going off of the way you characterize our dialogue on these issues, that means no one can ever generalize ANY group of people ever in a conversation…Ever, EVER. This is impossible. We know very well there are exceptions to the rule on effeminate men, and I think you and the other Cypher Avenue Squad Members know that as well (whether masc or fem). We’re clearly speaking on the extreme fems and Down Low masc men that tend to define the rest of us to the masses.

As for putting down to build ourselves up, I’d like you to point to a specific example where we say that we’re better than feminine gay men in an attempt to build ourselves up. I’ll wait.

@tyron88, I understand what you’re saying and, trust me, I had the exact same feelings the first time I came onto CA. Actually had an issue with the supposed CA meetup where @nick and @ocky only wanted to meet their masculine members but, at some point I accepted that people have a right to want to associate with whomever they want. Even I do it to some degree.

Also, I understand how a effeminate guy can feel like he’s being made the brunt of a joke when it’s two masculine gay guys doing it. Sorta like whites making “racist” jokes about black people. The difference is we’re all gay. In the words of nick, we all suck dick. LOL The one thing I never see is effeminate gay guys call out each other over some of the messiness that goes on in the community. Why leave it to masculine gay guys to always play bad cop. The example used in the podcast between WorldStarHipHop and Huff Post Black voices is spot on. I know effeminate gay guys in mannerisms only and they don’t engage in many of the activities spoken of here.

Oh I got so caught up on the frat stuff I forgot to talk about anything else.

To the character list, I think if the title would have stated that it was for “complex” characters it may have gone down better. Not sure I would consider Kaldrick King complex as his story is pretty common, but his scenario was interesting. I think the problem with the LA Complex was that it was marketed HORRIBLY. No one had ever heard of it and those who saw previews had no idea what it was about and didn’t watch. And the gays only watched for Kal and Tariq but their story was all available on youtube so no need to watch the show.

Awesome Podcast my dudes. One thing I must “correct” tho, that short commentary about homo/bisexuality in Roman times, it actually WASN’T that accepted in general Roman/Greek Society (yeah, my nerd side is comin’ out). As fucked up as it was/is…Man on Man sex/relationships was “frowned” upon. It was more acceptable for men to be intimate with boys “Pederasty” than for two grown men to be intimate/ be in a relationship. Caligula was just a psychotic, incestuous, lunatic that nobody in their right mind was gonna question. As far as Church and the Black Gay Community, I dont get it, never got it, and at this point don’t really care. I’ve never felt comfortable in a church and always felt something just wasn’t right with what was taught. Anyways, I gotta check out the rest of the Podcast, Im trying listen to it and a work conference call at the same time. LOL